The winner of such top literary honors as Spain's Miguel de Cervantes Prize, Venezuela's Rómulo Gallegos Prize, and Mexico's National Prize in Literature, as well as the author of The Years with Laura Díaz, The Old Gringo, and The Death of Artemio Cruz, the late Carlos Fuentes was honored this year with the creation of the Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language. This novel, his last, is an epic of passion, magic, and desire in modern Mexico, where ancient mythologies compete with the sensuousness, avarice, and need of the 21st century. Already dead as the story begins, Josué Nadal tells of his fateful meeting as a skinny, awkward teen with Jericó, the boy who will become his twin, his best friend, and his shadow.